Electronics

[seaswirl]

My PC that you helped me re-fomat a couple years ago no longer connects to the internet. The day before it stopped, I put some kind of a block on it so my "littles" couldn't access inappropriate sites, and now it won't get online. I'm so mad . . . I hope I didn't wreck it totally.

Thanks again for any help.

[VolvoGirl]

Maybe you can restore it to a time before you put on the block.

[gilmoregirl]

Go back in under the parental control settings and turn them off. You should be fine

[glb613]

As posted, either restore to a time before the block or get into the settings and unblock.

[gardenman]

If all else fails you can reformat all over again and start from scratch.

One thing to note is that most of the software designed to stop kids from getting online is pretty much useless. Most kids have easy unfiltered access at a friend's house, library, or other location. And even if they don't, most of the blocking software has issues that lets kids pretty easily bypass it. Some of the blocking software won't launch if Windows is restarted in safe mode. Some can be easily skirted by guessing at the password. Sometimes the kids don't even have to guess. Adults are known to use the same password on multiple sites/devices so if they give the kid their password on one device or site, the kid will try it everywhere and more often than not be allowed in. Many people write down their passwords and keep them by the computer. Kids figure this out very quickly.

Keeping kids from seeing anything online is pretty much a lost cause unless you glue a responsible adult to them 24/7. And truth be told many parents aren't aware that some devices can even go online, so a kid with a smartphone, e-reader, handheld gaming system, cheap tablet, etc. can very often be seeing whatever they want to see without the parent ever knowing it. You pretty much have to concede that your kids will see the worst of whatever's out there to see and you're probably better off trying to provide them with the tools necessary to cope with/understand what they see. All they need is one kid to get online access and files can be copied and shuffled around and pretty soon every kid has seen it.

It's not just modern kids either. A classmate of mine in fifth grade (way back in the early seventies) knew a neighbor subscribed to Playboy and he'd intercept it each month and bring it to school. He'd carefully slit open the top of the bag and we'd all retreat to the woods during lunch hour to look at the nak*ed women, then he'd take it back home where his mom had a Daisy Seal-A-Meal in the garage, reseal the top of the bag and return it to the mailbox before the neighbor got home.

Curiosity will almost certainly end up leading them to seeing things you don't want them to see and they're likely to do it when you won't know they're doing it, so your best bet is to try to discourage them from looking, but accept that they will anyway, and give them the tools to understand that not everything they see online is "normal".